Otto Kernberg, together with his colleagues Diana Diamond, Frank E. Yeomans, and Barry L. Stern, in describing narcissistic love relationships in the book Treating Pathological Narcissism with Transference-Focused Psychotherapy, draws attention to characteristic patterns of partner choice, envy, dependency, and the capacity to fall in love:

The partner selection of those with narcissistic disorders is characteristic for this personality constellation. 

Their incapacity to evaluate other people in depth determines a basic insecurity regarding their selection of a partner. An incapacity to evaluate and project the impact of the partner’s personality on their future interaction, the dominance of superficial selective criteria—such as whether the partner is sufficiently admiring of the patient, or whether the partner is sufficiently attractive to be admired by others—reinforces the grandiosity and superiority of the patient. 

The possibility of “getting more than having to give” in the overall transactions with the partner are leading considerations in object choice. Superficiality in the service of self and need gratification replaces deeper aspects of more mature love, which are the hallmarks of whole object relations, in which idealization of the other is not excessive or self serving, and there is a mutual appreciation and acceptance involving physical, sexual, ethical, and general personality features.

In sharp contrast, narcissistic patients typically carry out a “market analysis” of the pros and cons of a prospective partner’s attributes. 

The lack of the capacity to fall in love is a characteristic symptom of severely narcissistic personalities.

Those with pathological narcissism or NPD, in contrast, maintain the stable pattern of narcissistic promiscuity without the capacity for dependency.

The manifestations of envy at a conscious level are particularly marked in more severe degrees of narcissistic pathology. 

Better-functioning narcissistic personalities may suffer less from painful envy, as their envy is compensated for by their sense of superiority, fostered particularly by professional success.

In clinical practice, this may take very different forms. For example:

A person may choose a partner they can “be proud of”: someone attractive, successful, high-status, or exceptionally good-looking. The value of such a partner is determined to a considerable extent by how much they reinforce the person’s sense of their own importance and superiority. In other words, the partner functions as a “trophy,” whose primary role is to stabilize self-esteem. At the same time, the partner’s own qualities and achievements may become a source of envy and devaluation.

Or consider another situation:

A stable relationship cannot tolerate dependence on a single partner, while the need for new sexual objects persists. In such cases, promiscuity may sustain grandiosity while simultaneously protecting against the experience of dependency and deeper intimacy.

Behind these outwardly different scenarios lies one of the central questions of narcissistic love relationships:

Can the Other have value not merely as a source of admiration, validation of one’s own importance, or gratification of one’s needs—but as a separate person who can be valued, loved, and depended upon?

It is precisely this capacity that becomes particularly important when we consider the transition from narcissistic regulation of relationships to mature love.

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(c) Yuliia Holopiorova,

Ukrainian Association of Transference-Focused Psychotherapy